Photography, Narrative, Time

Imaging our Forensic Imagination

Providing a wide-ranging account of the narrative properties of photographs, Greg Battye focuses on the storytelling power of a single image, rather than the sequence. Drawing on ideas from painting, drawing, film, video, and multimedia, he applies contemporary research and theories drawn from cognitive science and psychology to the analysis of photographs. Using genuine forensic photographs of crime scenes and accidents, the book mines human drama and historical and sociological authenticity to argue for the centrality of the perception and representation of time in photographic narrativity.

“For anyone interested in more than photography—particularly in comprehending its strange hold over us as an activity both for taking and viewing images—this absorbing book will both expand your understanding of the medium and provide you with fresh insights from latest research.”

Robert J. Seidman, Art in America

“Battye has provided the photographic art or craft (or both) with staunch intellectual support, offering convincing evidence of the photo’s ability to imply much more than initially meets the eye.”

Kronoscope

A clear and engaging writer, Battye successfully discusses critical literature with an emphasis on temporal aspects of photography. Moreover, he adds to theoretical perspectives on photography by taking up three topics rarely approached in critical literature. . . . Battye’s great accomplishment in this volume is certainly the theoretically sound location of photographs within a theoretical framework of narrative. . . . Photography, Narrative, Time is a very ambitious and theoretically stringent work that brings together a multitude of academic discourses.”

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu